That was before the financial crisis and Henry Paulson’s $350 billion dollar handout of taxpayer’s money to Wall Street.
In fact these days, I’m shocked at how little outrage there is across America at the combination of corporate greed and government recklessness and stupidity that we as a country are experiencing.
Last weekend, I was slightly relieved to watch at least one senator who is starting to voice his outrage—yes, it’s not a bad word, and in fact is necessary now—directly at the Treasury Dept. and the way the TARP money has been spent. Now, I say only “slightly,” because the hypocrisy displayed by this senator is galling to watch as he played an instrumental role in drafting the legislation.
Nonetheless, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on 1/25/09, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, was interviewed about a series of letters he recently sent to the Treasury Dept. In one, he wrote that "TARP was intended to restore liquidity to the credit markets so that Main Street businesses could get the funds they need to meet payroll, purchase materials and finance sales. It was never intended to fund lavish bonuses for the people who got us into this mess." In another he pointed out that "In particular, the accounts of AIG's spending on lavish employee rewards, travel and retreats are outrageous…It is critical for Treasury and the Federal Reserve to clarify which institution has primary responsibility for making sure AIG is taking appropriate actions."
When pressed by CNN’s John King about his own party’s responsibility, Sen. Conrad defended himself by saying that “we thought we had strings and controls. For example, we had an oversight board. Only the outgoing administration never called it to meet.” Why am I not surprised?
The Senator went on to say that “money was given to some of the major banks in this country, some $250 billion, with no strings attached. They weren’t required to expand the credit pool. They weren’t restricted on bonuses, although the legislation clearly called for such restrictions.”
Merrill Lynch was particularly clever in evading any restrictions. As the senator explained, “they put the bonuses out before they got the federal money. In other words, they almost created a circumstance in which they would have to get federal money because they put out $4 billion in bonuses in December of last year, then were sold, bailed out basically, by Bank of America. And then Bank of America gets $20 billion in taxpayer money. That is an outrage. And for the man who ran Merrill Lynch, to then go to Bank of America and spend over $1 million redoing his office at Bank of America, when he knew there were massive losses and that the federal government, the taxpayers of the country, were going to be asked to make up this money. That really is outrageous.”
Amen Senator. Now get back to work on making sure that the second half of the $700 billion of the TARP money (and the $800 fiscal stimulus plan, for that matter) is not likewise pissed away without any accountability for how the funds, eh hem, how our money, is spent.
Sources:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/25/sotu.05.html
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/11/22/news/local/170024.txt
